Former Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan has said an Indian loitering munition may have accidentally hit Pakistan’s Kirana Hills during Operation Sindoor after running low on fuel, insisting that India had not deliberately targeted Pakistan’s nuclear facility in the area.
Speaking at the Vivekananda Centre in New Delhi on Tuesday, Chauhan said Indian forces had deployed several loitering munitions around Sargodha, located about 10 km south of Kirana Hills, to search for Pakistani radars during the May 2025 operation.
“So the loiter ammunition was looking for radars, which were in and around Sargodha, and it has got a lifetime. It will loiter for about two hours, and if it doesn’t find a target, it will come and hit somewhere,” Chauhan was quoted as saying by ANI. “It must have come and hit one of those hills,” he added.
Chauhan explained that the weapons were designed to remain airborne while searching for designated targets. According to him, the loitering munitions had a flight endurance of around two hours. If they failed to detect a target within that period, they could eventually strike a location nearby.
Chauhan said this account was consistent with an earlier clarification by retired Air Marshal AK Bharti, who served as the Indian Air Force’s Director General of Air Operations during Operation Sindoor.
The clarification comes amid speculation over whether India had targeted Kirana Hills, long rumoured to house elements of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons infrastructure, during the operation. Chauhan’s explanation attributes any strike near the site to the mechanical behaviour of loitering munitions running out of fuel while searching for radar targets, rather than a deliberate strike on Pakistan’s nuclear assets, an distinction with significant strategic and diplomatic implications given the sensitivity surrounding nuclear-adjacent infrastructure in the region.